Making art is easy for me. Too easy. I let it be too mush of a part of my identity for too long and too much of my ego was tied up in it. I won national awards, I went to the best schools, my work was even popular, but it didn't make me happy. After deliberately forcing myself to NOT make art for years I think I'm ready again, but I feel like an alcoholic that's been in recovery for years going to a bar. I don't want art to take up the part of my personality it was before. I want to express myself, but not let it become who I am. I realized after talking to a good friend last night that I'm so apprehensive about making art again because of its relationship to my Bi Polar disorder. I'm an amazing artist when I'm manic, of course. Mania is the worst. I'm so afraid of mania that I have put up with low level depression for years to keep it at bay. At first it's great, and then the anger comes. And then the paranoia, and then the depression comes back, worse than before. I just don't want to go there. I'm afraid of there. The thing is that I've got a lot of talent with or without the mental illness, but the mania gives it that extra POP. I'd give it all up. So many people tell me they wish they could draw or paint the way I do. I'd happily give it all up to take away all the pain its put me through. All the things I gave up because my mom pushed me so hard to be an artist. If I could get them back, if I could have run track in high school, taken shop classes, all the things I didn't do, if I could just have a few of them, go to a regular college, have a normal job I gave up so much just because I had talent and I thought it was the ONLY thing of value about myself, I really did. I thought it was the only thing I had to offer the world. I'm so much more than that, I know that now, but it took a long time to learn. I'm so scared.
Funny, all I did, or all I intended to do, was make a funny tee shirt for my friends. But it turned out too good. I was wearing the shirt and wishing I'd done it as an art print instead and those things I hate kept not creeping but jumping in, I should sell these, I want to make more, that whole identity thing, I'd rather be doing this than something else (surfing) the problem is that it takes me to a place I don't want to go. A treadmill I don't want to get back on. Other artists just don't understand, maybe I should be hanging out with JD Salinger and Cat Stevens and the pumpkin guy from Faith NO More. I hate the whole art scene, I hate the attitude, I hate selling. I hate what it does to my image and self worth. I hate that it reminds me of my mother and how hard she pushed me.
One of my prized posessions is a travel mug I made with A at a paint your own pottery shop on a whim. It was the most fun I'd had making art in as long as I can remember. Because it was just for me, just for fun, no pressure and with a dear friend. Its so hard for me to get that feeling from art. The feeling your supposed to get. I don't know if I can ever be free again.
One girl's search for her California dream
Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
One More Resolution
I've gone and done it again, I've procrastinated too long and now I don't have time to surf before work. I guess I shouldn't consider it a wasted morning since part of the reason that I don't have time to surf was that I took my dog for an extra-long walk, ironically under the guise of checking the surf on the north end of the beach. Somehow I got home just after noon, and if I don't get in the water by noon I can't really surf for more than half an hour to forty five minutes before I have to get out, and putting on and taking off my gear alone takes at least 20 minutes so it makes is not worth it, unless I'm really jonesing. So my resolution is to be out of bed by 9:30. I got up at 10 today and it was just not early enough to get Dave a nice walk and get a nice surf in without rushing so much as to make it not fun. 9:30 may seem like sleeping in plenty, but with my work schedule I'm usually not in bed till 1:30. I went to bed early last night since I didn't have to work, and it was still hard to get up, even though it was easier than usual.
My problem is that I spend too much time on the computer after work. The best thing for me to do would to not even turn on the computer after work and take Dave for a nice walk, and maybe do some yoga or something instead. The tricky part is that if I want to listen to music or anything I need to use my computer, I don't even have a TV.
Well, the way I've managed to keep resolutions in the past is that I see a resolution as a goal that I have a year to achieve. From what I understand most people don't keep resolutions because they quit as soon as they've blown it once. So the goal is to get in bed by 1:00 tonight and get up by 9:30.
My problem is that I spend too much time on the computer after work. The best thing for me to do would to not even turn on the computer after work and take Dave for a nice walk, and maybe do some yoga or something instead. The tricky part is that if I want to listen to music or anything I need to use my computer, I don't even have a TV.
Well, the way I've managed to keep resolutions in the past is that I see a resolution as a goal that I have a year to achieve. From what I understand most people don't keep resolutions because they quit as soon as they've blown it once. So the goal is to get in bed by 1:00 tonight and get up by 9:30.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year's Resoloutions
Some people don't like New Year's resolutions and think they don't work, but I've had a pretty good track record of keeping mine. I usually keep at least a couple of them. I read that writing them down and then not looking at them helps, and that's worked for me before. I also tried writing them down where I could see them every day. I also don't count New Year's Day. I see the whole holiday season as a kind of time for being decadent and careless while the days are like 5 minutes long and you aren't going to get anything done anyway. The sun went down at 5:01 today. YUCK! I hate winter.
So here goes not in any particular order:
1. Learn Surfcam, believe it or not, that's a career thing
2. Practice my pop ups every day.
3. (I did not keep this one last year, so I'm altering it to be more realistic this year): resume out of water surf training at least 3 times a week. Its funny how it was so much easier to be disciplined about that when I first started surfing than it is now.
4. Do Beth Terry's "Show us your Plastic Challenge" one week a month.
Instead of the usual "eat healthier-loose weight-save money" trifecta I've come up with a plan. When I lost my ATM card and had to live on only cash I realized what I already knew which was that I spend too much money on snack-fast-junk food, and the way to keep me from doing that is to not have money to waste on it. Since I do the bulk of my grocery shopping at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, most of the food I buy for myself is pretty healthy. If I don't have access to anything else, that's all I will eat. The plan is to give myself a cash allowance each week and keep my debit card out of my wallet so I can't buy junk food without having to pay cash for it. I'm making the allowance bigger than my old "Food Budget" that I kept mentally but didn't actually stick to so that my "Fun Money" and my "Food Money" are now one amount. That way if I want to go to the movies at the end of the week or buy a new outfit, I'll have to stick with beet chips and hummus and celery and peanut butter instead of sneaking out for a burger to temporarily cheer myself up for whatever reason. This totally worked when I lost my debit card but wanted a new dress for my company's holiday party, so I know I can make it work on a regular basis. The trick is that I'm going to do it in one week chunks.
So here goes not in any particular order:
1. Learn Surfcam, believe it or not, that's a career thing
2. Practice my pop ups every day.
3. (I did not keep this one last year, so I'm altering it to be more realistic this year): resume out of water surf training at least 3 times a week. Its funny how it was so much easier to be disciplined about that when I first started surfing than it is now.
4. Do Beth Terry's "Show us your Plastic Challenge" one week a month.
Instead of the usual "eat healthier-loose weight-save money" trifecta I've come up with a plan. When I lost my ATM card and had to live on only cash I realized what I already knew which was that I spend too much money on snack-fast-junk food, and the way to keep me from doing that is to not have money to waste on it. Since I do the bulk of my grocery shopping at the Farmer's Market on Saturday, most of the food I buy for myself is pretty healthy. If I don't have access to anything else, that's all I will eat. The plan is to give myself a cash allowance each week and keep my debit card out of my wallet so I can't buy junk food without having to pay cash for it. I'm making the allowance bigger than my old "Food Budget" that I kept mentally but didn't actually stick to so that my "Fun Money" and my "Food Money" are now one amount. That way if I want to go to the movies at the end of the week or buy a new outfit, I'll have to stick with beet chips and hummus and celery and peanut butter instead of sneaking out for a burger to temporarily cheer myself up for whatever reason. This totally worked when I lost my debit card but wanted a new dress for my company's holiday party, so I know I can make it work on a regular basis. The trick is that I'm going to do it in one week chunks.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Eco Friendly Wrapping *Paper
For some reason giving up wrapping paper is one of the more painful things for me to sacrifice for the planet. I miss juices, but for some reason wrapping paper in all its frivolousness and being such an obvious and easy thing to give up, is something I miss the most.
I always took such pride in my elaborately wrapped gifts. I would search store after store for just the right wrapping paper. I made bows with jingle bells, beads, pop poms, and handmade tags. Sometimes I even made the boxes myself from origami. People would keep my boxes and bows to re use year after year. I loved Mylar wrapping paper most of all. I knew it was wasteful, but it was just so fun and so pretty.
The first year I gave up wrapping paper was the easiest. I had just completed huge sewing project for a wedding where I made both the bride's "dress" and the grooms menswear. I had a mountain of beautiful fabric and ribbon scraps too small for another project but too big to throw away just begging to be re used. As per usual, people who got gifts from me (almost all non sewers) kept the fabric. I even saw a friend using the velvet scrap I used as wrapping in his guitar case just last month.
Year two I failed. After leaving my husband in August and nearly severing my finger in an industrial accident just before Christmas, my fabric and ribbon scraps had been purged and my creativity tanked, and I gave in and bought wrapping paper at Walgreens at the very last minute and to add insult to injury, quite literally, Even with wrapping paper, it looked like a 5 year old, or at least a mere mortal without my superior wrapping powers had done it. Well, to be honest, it looked exactly like someone who loves to wrap gifts but had recently nearly severed her right index finger had done it.
This is year three. My brother Tom is way ahead of me. He uses comic books that have lost their value as wrapping paper. It looks phenomenal. Mine came from a comic that was clearly intended for adults, so it might not work for everyone. I'm not really a comic book kind of person, so I had no comic books, but I did have a calender from last year, or this year, depending on how you look at it. One of the coolest things about using a calender was that you can use the small versions of the pictures that they print on the back as matching tags. Unfortunately, this only covers 6 to 18 gifts depending on the calendar and the size of the gifts. (tee shirts take two months, btw)
I tried using a magazine for the larger gifts, unfortunately, the magazine I picked was Entertainment Weekly's 2010's best and worst, and guess what was on the center pages I had planned on using: the celebrity obituaries! Not really the festive feeling I was going for, so I had to toss those pages in favor of some others.
Somehow, I know its silly, but I just really miss wrapping paper.
I always took such pride in my elaborately wrapped gifts. I would search store after store for just the right wrapping paper. I made bows with jingle bells, beads, pop poms, and handmade tags. Sometimes I even made the boxes myself from origami. People would keep my boxes and bows to re use year after year. I loved Mylar wrapping paper most of all. I knew it was wasteful, but it was just so fun and so pretty.
The first year I gave up wrapping paper was the easiest. I had just completed huge sewing project for a wedding where I made both the bride's "dress" and the grooms menswear. I had a mountain of beautiful fabric and ribbon scraps too small for another project but too big to throw away just begging to be re used. As per usual, people who got gifts from me (almost all non sewers) kept the fabric. I even saw a friend using the velvet scrap I used as wrapping in his guitar case just last month.
Year two I failed. After leaving my husband in August and nearly severing my finger in an industrial accident just before Christmas, my fabric and ribbon scraps had been purged and my creativity tanked, and I gave in and bought wrapping paper at Walgreens at the very last minute and to add insult to injury, quite literally, Even with wrapping paper, it looked like a 5 year old, or at least a mere mortal without my superior wrapping powers had done it. Well, to be honest, it looked exactly like someone who loves to wrap gifts but had recently nearly severed her right index finger had done it.
This is year three. My brother Tom is way ahead of me. He uses comic books that have lost their value as wrapping paper. It looks phenomenal. Mine came from a comic that was clearly intended for adults, so it might not work for everyone. I'm not really a comic book kind of person, so I had no comic books, but I did have a calender from last year, or this year, depending on how you look at it. One of the coolest things about using a calender was that you can use the small versions of the pictures that they print on the back as matching tags. Unfortunately, this only covers 6 to 18 gifts depending on the calendar and the size of the gifts. (tee shirts take two months, btw)
I tried using a magazine for the larger gifts, unfortunately, the magazine I picked was Entertainment Weekly's 2010's best and worst, and guess what was on the center pages I had planned on using: the celebrity obituaries! Not really the festive feeling I was going for, so I had to toss those pages in favor of some others.
Somehow, I know its silly, but I just really miss wrapping paper.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Localvore to freegan
It started with some pots and pans, and a dish drainer. Like I predicted, I broke down and got new pots and pans when I could afford them. Then, some girl who had the same taste in clothes as me left a pile of them on the beach. I don't usually take used clothes, (San Francisco has a bedbug epidemic, this is why I'm saving up for a NEW couch as opposed to a used or free one) but they were all surfer girl clothes, all my favorite brands, stuff I would buy myself. Yes, I'm a materialistic tree hugging freak, so sue me. I even liked the girls perfume, the clothes I found on the street smelled better than mine.
But the eggs put me over the top. I came out of my favorite local produce store, delighted that I had purchased the very first slice of pumpkin chocolate chip cake plastic free, before they wrapped up the individual slices, and there they were, piled high peeking out of the dumpster, a stack of dozens of eggs. I was almost out of eggs. I know that eggs last for four weeks past the expiration date, I know how to tell if an egg is good by putting it in water, and I know that some chickens had to lay those eggs. I looked at this stack of free perfectly good eggs, destined for San Francisco's municipal compost, and couldn't resist, I looked to see if anyone was looking, they weren't even all the way in the dumpster, I opened one. It was perfect. Not one broken egg. I put it under my arm. I got greedy, I looked at the next one. Only one broken egg, just barely broken. I grabbed that box too. It was thrilling.
Now I knew the schedule. I went back a week later, this time at night, with a flashlight. Bananas. I hadn't eaten bananas in almost a year, since deciding to eat only local produce for environmental reasons. Then peppers, a tomato, it was almost like shopping!
I got bananas again tonight. I had my choice of them! I think I lucked out with the eggs, but this is my new habit. My schedule lends itself to dumpster diving. I'm going to shop dumpster first.
But the eggs put me over the top. I came out of my favorite local produce store, delighted that I had purchased the very first slice of pumpkin chocolate chip cake plastic free, before they wrapped up the individual slices, and there they were, piled high peeking out of the dumpster, a stack of dozens of eggs. I was almost out of eggs. I know that eggs last for four weeks past the expiration date, I know how to tell if an egg is good by putting it in water, and I know that some chickens had to lay those eggs. I looked at this stack of free perfectly good eggs, destined for San Francisco's municipal compost, and couldn't resist, I looked to see if anyone was looking, they weren't even all the way in the dumpster, I opened one. It was perfect. Not one broken egg. I put it under my arm. I got greedy, I looked at the next one. Only one broken egg, just barely broken. I grabbed that box too. It was thrilling.
Now I knew the schedule. I went back a week later, this time at night, with a flashlight. Bananas. I hadn't eaten bananas in almost a year, since deciding to eat only local produce for environmental reasons. Then peppers, a tomato, it was almost like shopping!
I got bananas again tonight. I had my choice of them! I think I lucked out with the eggs, but this is my new habit. My schedule lends itself to dumpster diving. I'm going to shop dumpster first.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
my new neighbors!
I don't know if I've written much about my new apartment yet. I'm very excited and very broke, and it may be full of mold, like my TWO YEAR OLD TOYOTA, and it would win an ugly contest with the Byrne, and the wallpaper is stained and has more holes in it than Swiss cheese, and the yard floods A LOT when it rains, which being in San Francisco, it rains A LOT. Actually, I could go on, its going to be a great set when Drew Barymore makes a "$12 Surfboard" movie. I've got doors to nowhere, a hole in my sink, weird crystals growing in my cabinets, a cabinet door made of cardboard, not the fake wood cardboard, but the corrugated kind. And there are random bars on the windows, like a demented drug dealer used to live here, from the outside it kind of looks like a Liquor store in Detroit, yet it has a glass front door. I just discovered that the window not just leaks, but funnels rain inside in a waterfall if you don't close it right.
BUT ITS AWESOME AND I LOVE IT!
I'm a block from the beach. I get to keep my dog. I have a yard with a hose. And best of all:
ALMOST ALL MY NEIGHBORS ARE SURFERS!
So this morning, in the first time since forever, I got up and got a morning session in on a Saturday. I suppose most people would be mad if their neighbors woke them up on a Saturday morning. But I was quite literally stoked!
I was having this awful nightmare, I had accidentally destroyed a weaving and was trying to fix it before the weaver came back, and everything I did made it worse.
But then I heard my neighbor Alex saying "Sarah! Sarah are you home?" You see, I live in a building full of surfers, and I am the only one in possession of a yard and a hose. This makes me very popular. Alex was in Costa Rica (more on that later) when I moved in and was storing his wetsuit in my yard, he apologized for it, but I told him he was more than welcome to keep it there. I mean, I have a HOSE (which is actually Alex's but he left it in my yard, and I assumed correctly that he wouldn't mind if I used it) and a YARD. A fenced in yard you can CHANGE in! I would be a very bad person if I would not share this bounty. And, hey, who minds surfer boys changing in the yard? Really? All this for $1100 bucks a month? Who needs real cupboard doors, or doors that go somewhere? Or wallpaper that doesn't make your eyes hurt? And the window totally works if I close it right. I have neighbors that care enough to not let me miss the good surf by sleeping in. I woke up from a nightmare to a happy surfing dream that turned out to be reality. I'm in paradise.
BUT ITS AWESOME AND I LOVE IT!
I'm a block from the beach. I get to keep my dog. I have a yard with a hose. And best of all:
ALMOST ALL MY NEIGHBORS ARE SURFERS!
So this morning, in the first time since forever, I got up and got a morning session in on a Saturday. I suppose most people would be mad if their neighbors woke them up on a Saturday morning. But I was quite literally stoked!
I was having this awful nightmare, I had accidentally destroyed a weaving and was trying to fix it before the weaver came back, and everything I did made it worse.
But then I heard my neighbor Alex saying "Sarah! Sarah are you home?" You see, I live in a building full of surfers, and I am the only one in possession of a yard and a hose. This makes me very popular. Alex was in Costa Rica (more on that later) when I moved in and was storing his wetsuit in my yard, he apologized for it, but I told him he was more than welcome to keep it there. I mean, I have a HOSE (which is actually Alex's but he left it in my yard, and I assumed correctly that he wouldn't mind if I used it) and a YARD. A fenced in yard you can CHANGE in! I would be a very bad person if I would not share this bounty. And, hey, who minds surfer boys changing in the yard? Really? All this for $1100 bucks a month? Who needs real cupboard doors, or doors that go somewhere? Or wallpaper that doesn't make your eyes hurt? And the window totally works if I close it right. I have neighbors that care enough to not let me miss the good surf by sleeping in. I woke up from a nightmare to a happy surfing dream that turned out to be reality. I'm in paradise.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
lately, I've been frustrated with my surfing ability its been months since I had a "good" session. I'm tense when I get in the water, and only slightly less when I get out. I've been in tears nearly every session, and it doesn't matter the quality of the wave, it actually gets worse when the surf is good. or the difficulty, it gets worse when I go to an "easy" spot. Either I'm in tears because I can't do it because it's still above my ability after I've been surfing for so long, or I'm in tears and depressed because I can't even seem to be able to do what I could do a year ago. I'm at my wits end. Just last fall I was starting to drop into overhead waves and now I hopelessly pearl at the god damned jetty. I can't remember the last time I caught a wave and enjoyed it, really enjoyed it. Its like I've lost faith, in everything.
Its not just surfing that I've been struggling with lately. About two months ago I was promoted to "temporary" shift supervisor. I was so excited and proud of myself. But today I had that taken away. I was close to giving it up anyway. I couldn't concentrate. I was making stupid mistakes. I stopped enjoying myself. The guys I was supervising weren't even difficult to supervise, but I buckled under the pressure anyway. I'm so disappointed in myself. But I was in over my head, and my boss had the good sense to pull me out before I drowned. It's disappointing, sure. I thought I could do it, but it was too much too soon. Now I can concentrate on being an amazing machinist. And that's really what I want.
I turned down program director at boys and girls club for a reason. I was a great art teacher, I was one of the best in a city that had the best, in the worst neighborhood in the city. I had some amazing peers, legends in their fields, and I was one of them, to stand with people like Kay and Bill and Mark was an honor, and I knew I was worthy of it. I deserved to be, and I knew it. I would have been at best an average program director, realistically a pretty lousy one, because it wasn't where my heart was. My heart wasn't in supervising. It was in making good parts. And I'm just too dumb or too smart to do both at once.
In fact, if I can be as good a machinist as I was an art teacher after 5 years I'll be pretty kick ass.
That makes me feel better. There were times early teaching art that I was in tears, I did stupid things. I did stupid things and was in tears a lot near the end, but for different reasons. I did stupid things and was in tears a lot, because I cared. I guess that's happening all over again. Growing is painful.
I felt so good after being demoted today. I was sad for about an hour, and then I was so happy that I could go back to just being a machinist again. The two things I was worried about when I took the job were not whether or not I could do it, it was that I would follow the career track of most women in technical fields and wind up managing instead of making, and that I would stop growing as a machinist. I went backwards as a machinist.
The way this relates to my surfing block is this: I've been so frustrated lately its almost like I'm setting myself up to fail. And I know I was setting myself up to fail on my $12 surfboard, learning to surf where no one should learn to surf, but by knowingly setting myself up to fail, I was also accepting that I would fail, and I've lost sight of that. Failing is part of succeeding. Like they said in "Roll Bounce" "If you don't fall, how will you ever know what it feels like to get up?"
One of the first lessons, and probably one of the most important lessons I've learned surfing is that when you wipe out really badly, you don't struggle. The first time I really got tumbled, really held down, I knew this intrinsically after a few seconds. The wave is more powerful than you. You don't know which way is up, so if you struggle, you waste your air and may be holding yourself down for longer, in fact, you usually are. But you are buoyant, your board is buoyant, and waves have a rhythm and cycle and if you just relax, go limp, and give yourself up to the wave it will bring you back up faster than struggling will. But the last two really bad wipe outs I had, I struggled. I even knew better. I made the conscious decision to struggle. I as so angry at myself. I was so angry in general. I wasn't paddling, I was punching the water. I knew at one point I was pushing myself down further. I was so frustrated that I did something I knew was just making the problem worse, and it wasn't working. I had to force myself to give in, and as soon as I did, I recovered. If only life were so simple. I had to give in because I was going to run out of air if I didn't.
I remember the joy of my first real wipe out. I'd slipped off my board a few times, but nothing like that. That was the first time I got tumbled, really tumbled. I was down, I didn't know what was up or down. It was scary. I knew from the beginning that it was coming and if I could get through that, I could keep surfing. I knew there was a real possibility that I would get so scared I would quit. Back then, I still could have quit. I was only out 12 bucks. Less than a sandwich, as Charlie said.
But I realized when I was down there I knew exactly what to do. Go rag doll limp. And when I made it to the surface, it was even better than finally achieving the coveted pop up two years later. I remember that now. Failing really is the first step to succeeding, and lately I've lost sight of that.
Lately I've had the powerful urge to ride the Byrne again. Now I understand. Just like the time I really did drop in on an overhead wave because I knew I could go for it or be pummeled by it. I took it because I was forced to. I didn't even know that the wave was that big until the next day.
Lately, I've been desparate to get back to that. I've gotten lazy by trying too hard. I need to fail if I'm ever going to succeed.
Its not just surfing that I've been struggling with lately. About two months ago I was promoted to "temporary" shift supervisor. I was so excited and proud of myself. But today I had that taken away. I was close to giving it up anyway. I couldn't concentrate. I was making stupid mistakes. I stopped enjoying myself. The guys I was supervising weren't even difficult to supervise, but I buckled under the pressure anyway. I'm so disappointed in myself. But I was in over my head, and my boss had the good sense to pull me out before I drowned. It's disappointing, sure. I thought I could do it, but it was too much too soon. Now I can concentrate on being an amazing machinist. And that's really what I want.
I turned down program director at boys and girls club for a reason. I was a great art teacher, I was one of the best in a city that had the best, in the worst neighborhood in the city. I had some amazing peers, legends in their fields, and I was one of them, to stand with people like Kay and Bill and Mark was an honor, and I knew I was worthy of it. I deserved to be, and I knew it. I would have been at best an average program director, realistically a pretty lousy one, because it wasn't where my heart was. My heart wasn't in supervising. It was in making good parts. And I'm just too dumb or too smart to do both at once.
In fact, if I can be as good a machinist as I was an art teacher after 5 years I'll be pretty kick ass.
That makes me feel better. There were times early teaching art that I was in tears, I did stupid things. I did stupid things and was in tears a lot near the end, but for different reasons. I did stupid things and was in tears a lot, because I cared. I guess that's happening all over again. Growing is painful.
I felt so good after being demoted today. I was sad for about an hour, and then I was so happy that I could go back to just being a machinist again. The two things I was worried about when I took the job were not whether or not I could do it, it was that I would follow the career track of most women in technical fields and wind up managing instead of making, and that I would stop growing as a machinist. I went backwards as a machinist.
The way this relates to my surfing block is this: I've been so frustrated lately its almost like I'm setting myself up to fail. And I know I was setting myself up to fail on my $12 surfboard, learning to surf where no one should learn to surf, but by knowingly setting myself up to fail, I was also accepting that I would fail, and I've lost sight of that. Failing is part of succeeding. Like they said in "Roll Bounce" "If you don't fall, how will you ever know what it feels like to get up?"
One of the first lessons, and probably one of the most important lessons I've learned surfing is that when you wipe out really badly, you don't struggle. The first time I really got tumbled, really held down, I knew this intrinsically after a few seconds. The wave is more powerful than you. You don't know which way is up, so if you struggle, you waste your air and may be holding yourself down for longer, in fact, you usually are. But you are buoyant, your board is buoyant, and waves have a rhythm and cycle and if you just relax, go limp, and give yourself up to the wave it will bring you back up faster than struggling will. But the last two really bad wipe outs I had, I struggled. I even knew better. I made the conscious decision to struggle. I as so angry at myself. I was so angry in general. I wasn't paddling, I was punching the water. I knew at one point I was pushing myself down further. I was so frustrated that I did something I knew was just making the problem worse, and it wasn't working. I had to force myself to give in, and as soon as I did, I recovered. If only life were so simple. I had to give in because I was going to run out of air if I didn't.
I remember the joy of my first real wipe out. I'd slipped off my board a few times, but nothing like that. That was the first time I got tumbled, really tumbled. I was down, I didn't know what was up or down. It was scary. I knew from the beginning that it was coming and if I could get through that, I could keep surfing. I knew there was a real possibility that I would get so scared I would quit. Back then, I still could have quit. I was only out 12 bucks. Less than a sandwich, as Charlie said.
But I realized when I was down there I knew exactly what to do. Go rag doll limp. And when I made it to the surface, it was even better than finally achieving the coveted pop up two years later. I remember that now. Failing really is the first step to succeeding, and lately I've lost sight of that.
Lately I've had the powerful urge to ride the Byrne again. Now I understand. Just like the time I really did drop in on an overhead wave because I knew I could go for it or be pummeled by it. I took it because I was forced to. I didn't even know that the wave was that big until the next day.
Lately, I've been desparate to get back to that. I've gotten lazy by trying too hard. I need to fail if I'm ever going to succeed.
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